He drove the dagger straight into her chest.
A sickening gasp wrenched from her lips.
Her body jerked.
She collapsed over Armand, dying beside the man she loved.
A strangled sob escaped my lips.
I sat frozen, tears streaming down my face, unable to move, unable to breathe.
And then?—
A shift in the air.
A glow, faint at first, growing stronger.
I looked up.
Isabelle and Armand stepped out of the vision.
They stood before us, transparent, ghostly echoes of who they once were.
Their gazes were soft, knowing. They looked at each other first, then at Roman and me, their expressions filled with something unshaken, something eternal.
A second chance.
“You’ve been given another chance,” Armand said, his voice like distant wind through trees.
“You must defeat the darkness and the Timehunters,” Isabelle whispered. “Do not make the same mistakes we did.”
Armand nodded. “Do not repeat history.”
I bolted to my feet, hands outstretched toward them.
“Help us remember.” My voice was raw, desperate. “Where did you hide the Moon Dagger?”
Armand and Isabelle exchanged a look—a quiet understanding passing between them as if they held the key to a secret we weren’t ready to know.
“Please.” My chest tightened, frustration building inside me. “You’re the ones who hid it. Surely you remember where you put it.”
Still, they only smiled.
A maddening, mysterious smile.
The silence clawed at me.
“You tell us not to make the same mistakes,” I pressed, “but how can we stop history from repeating if we don’t know where the dagger is?”
Isabelle’s eyes gleamed. “It’s in the same place where it all started for you.”
The air grew colder.
My breath hitched.
“Somewhere deep and dark,” she continued, “like where you were born.”
Her smile widened as she spoke the final words?—
